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Antoine de
Saint-Exupéry
"A strange human
being, excepcional and wonderful, a prince,
a generous prince, aloof, lost among us."
(Captain G.
Courtain)
"Where do I come from? I
come from my childhood…"
Nineteen hundred. The expectations
of a new century, intact, yet to be given shape, rose together with the
curtain of a new life. What would become of this century? What would be
become of this child born with the century? Maybe someone put anxiously
that question to Mr. and Mrs. de Saint-Exupéry on that 29th of June
1900 in Lyon. Antoine had just entered History.
"It is by chance that I was born in Lyon" ,
Antoine would say later. It was true in a certain sense. His mother was
born in Provence, his father in Limousin. Chance had brought them
together in Lyon, where he used to work as a insurance broker. His
father belonged to an old aristocratic family, and he kept still his
count title and prestige of a name thought to go as far back as the
fifth century.
Antoine knew his father only through photos. In fact,
Jean de Saint-Exupéry died in 1904, leaving behind a widow and five
sons of short age. The oldest was seven, the youngest one.
Antoine’s mother, bending under sorrow and
difficulties, takes the decision to join her aunt, Madame de Tricaud,
who has a castle in Saint-Maurice de Rémens.
There, in a fairy tale like atmosphere, Antoine
spends the happiest days of his life. The old castle is surrounded by a
huge park full with trees, and his luxuriant fantasy makes an enchanted
castle out of it. Games without end in the park. On rainy days the
children lose themselves in the long alleyways looking for the
treasures.
At that time everybody fancies calling him Antoine
"the King Sun": King, because he reigns over this marvelous
world; Sun, because his blond, golden hair reminds them of the sun.
Saint-Maurice de Remens means sweet years spend next
to a loving and understanding mother who entertains her children with
fairy tales and piano playing. It means, too, Paula, the Austrian
tutoress, whom Antoine remembers, as a grown-up with tenderness:"
My oldest recollections? I had a tutoress from Tirol, her name was
Paula. But this is not a recollection. She was already a legend when I
was five years old, in the entrance hall…"
She is above all the symbol of the old stove which
used to heat Antoine’s room, and watch his sleep over at night. The
memory of this stove will remain engraved in his mind: "The best
thing, the most placid, and the friendliest which I have ever known is
the little stove from upstairs in Saint-Maurice. Nothing else ever in my
existence made me feel so secure. I woke up at night to listen to its
humming top like noise and watch its agile shadows on the wall. I do not
know why, but it made me think of a faithful water spaniel. The stove
protected us against everything… Never ever have I had a friend like
that stove." (Letter to his mother. Buenos Aires 1939)
Five years have gone by. Antoine is just nine. Madame
de Saint-Exupéry decides to leave Saint-Maurice and settle down anew in
Le Mans with her sons. There they will receive a good education. Antoine
and Francois go to Our Lady of the Holy Cross's school. Antoine is not
what one might call an industrious student. His fellow student Gauthier
says of him: "He was a boy with a round face and a nose shaped like
a stew-pot's leg, and who smiled with an intractable air about him. His
hair was disorderly and he wore his collar and neck-tie in a crooked
way, in short, he was the inattentive student who, like many others, had
his fingers full with ink."
Disorderly about himself, but, above all, disorderly
about his things. Punishements are now abundant. Antoine discovers
discipline and experiences the first sorrows. Luckily he finds in his
mother an '"almighty" support. As a grown-up he will remember
that sweet and sour time: "When I was a young boy l used to cry on
the way back from school with my rucksack on my back, because I had been
punished (remember Le Mans?), but a single kiss was enough to make me
forget everything. You were an almighty support against supervisors and
prefects. I felt secure in your home..." (Letter to his mother,
Buenos Aires 1939.)
Undoubtedly Madame de Saint-Exupéry had a great
influence on her sons and on Antoine in particular. She was an
exceptional human being, singularly gifted for painting, writing and
music. She iniciated her children, as from earliest age, to the
contemplation of a picture, to the reading of a good book, to the
understanding of a beautiful melody through body and soul... It can be
said that Antoine's childhood turned around two poles: Saint-Maurice de
Rémens and his mother.
An unsettled youth
Antoine is on the difficult step
from childhood to youth when the first world war sets in. It is the
start of a period of instability which has its repercussions on
Antoine's personality, yet to be given shape, and on his studies too.
Madame de Saint-Exupery works as a sister at
Amberieux's hospital and sends Francois and Antoine to a Jesuits' school
in Villefranche. They do not succeed in adapting themselves to the
strict discipline, and three month's later join the school of Saint John
in Fribourg, Switzerland. The balance of the three months at the Jesuits
is rather negative: a new nickname, "Pique Ia lune", a cruel
allusion to a turned-up nose... The name Antoine was out of fashion.
The new atmosphere and peaceful surroundings in
Fribourg do not contribute to give a new impulse to Antoine's studying.
Now, more than ever, he indulges in reveries and dedicates the whole of
his time to reading and writing poetry: "At the age of
sixteen", he would say later, "I discovered the poets; it goes
without saying that I was convinced that I was a poet, too, and for two
years I wrote poetry, proudly, like all other youths".
But soon Antoine has to go back to reality... a harsh
reality. His brother Francois who suffers from heart rheumatism, dies in
July. The death of his brother impresses him very deeply. But life
continues... he takes several higher level examinations, prior to
University, and is successful in 1917.
The difficult years
The moment to take a decision has
come. He prepares himself for a competitive examination in order to be
admitted to the Naval School. In two years of studies at the Bossuet
School. But he goes on indulging in reveries, also he is little inclined
to obey the square structures of discipline two years become three and
he fails the final examination, prior to admission to the School.
Nevertheless, during this span of time, his ideas have ripened gradually
and his interest for astrology and literature has grown bigger. His
friends are amazed at his way of life, but, in a certain sense, they
envy him: "What a guy! - recalls Renee de Saussine, closely
acquainted with Antoine-, he lives on coffee only, so that he can buy
himself a sextant. He writes short stories during his studies. One day
he will be famous". Nevertheless, he is still as shy and
untractable as before. Henri de Ségogne, who studied with him, makes
the following description: "A shy youth, wild, inclined to sudden
changes of mood, at one time full of energy and life, at another,
taciturn, shut up seemingly in anger, all of it a clue to his musing
activity. He was little sociable, and that made him suffer, because he
wanted to be loved."
So then, three years of studying did not lead him
anywhere real... Antoine felt that there were no chances of joining the
Naval School, and all his illusions faded away at once. Moreover, fate
turned against him... gone over the age limit.
Then he registered at the School of Art, Department
of Arquitecture. This is the time when he used to go out in a group.
This is the time of the long talks in the cafes of the Latin Quarter,
but also of insoluble money problems. This is the time when he used to
live in a tiny room in the Louisiana Hotel and, in short, the time of
unexciting humdrum. Although he liked drawing, Antoine was not satisfied
with the studies he had just undertaken and when, at last, on the 2nd of
April 1921, he was called up for military service in the Second Regiment
of the Aircraft Forces -he himself had made all efforts to join the
soonest possible-, Antoine thought relieved that this time he had indeed
found his true way: aviation.
" You shall see when I take
off on my plane..."
His interest in aircrafts soon
changed into passion, a passion which he had in him for several years.
It all started in Saint-Maurice de Rémens during a summer holiday. Near
the castle there was an aircraft field which he subrepticiously used to
approach in order to watch the comings and goings of pilots and
mechanics. Antoine quickly became fond of all these people, completely
dedicated to make perfect this newly-born means of transport. From the
beginning he liked the atmosphere of comradeship' and brotherhood which
reigned among them. Soon they became acquinted with each other and one
day a miracle happened: a well known pilot, Vedrines, puzzled by the
eagerness of the young boy, suggested an excursion by plane. That very
day of the year 1912 Antoine gave shape to the emotions he had felt
during his first trip in the air. Only these three verses remain:
"Les ailes fre'missaient sous le
souffle du soir
Le moteur de son chant bercait l'dme endormie
Le soleil nous frdlait de sa couleur pdlie."
Antoine had just discovered that he
too, had the soul of a pilot. He changed his bicycle into an airplane by
fitting to it two wings he had made out of a bedsheet, and after taking
seat on his machine he exclaimed proudly: "You shall see when I
take off on my plane. The crowd will shout: Hurrah Antoine de Saint-Exupéry!"
Many years went by. Antoine was about to be
twenty-one when the Second Regiment of the Aircraft Forces in Strasbourg
called him up to military service.
Soon he was disillusioned: they did not admit him
among the flying personnel; instead he was assigned to the landing
services as an assistant. His desire to fly was not going to be
fulfilled this time either. Antoine felt down and, as usual, he
disclosed his grief to his mother: "At night I feel a little
sadness. You ought to come here, to Strasbourg, some day. I am somewhat
choking in this atmosphere. I have no prospects. I need to occupy myself
with something that I like." (Letter to his mother, Strasbourg
1921.)
But now he had found his way and had made the
decision to be successful by all means: "Mum" he goes on,
"if you only knew how irresistible is my desire to fly! if I do not
attain my aim, I shall be very unhappy.., but I shall attain it."
And he was successful. He took private coaching from
a civil monitor, and a few months later he had a civil pilot's diploma.
That had not been easy at alt The coaching was expensive and the money
from the grant was not enough. So he had to resort all the time to his
mother's generosity. This explains why his being impatient, which almost
cost him his life and which made Commander Garde utter the sentence:
"Saint-Exupéry, you shall never kill yourself in an airplane
accident, otherwise you would have done so already."
As Antoine wants to become a military pilot, he is
sent to Rabat where he will undergo the necessary instruction. Six
months later he obtains the diploma, and with it the rank of second
lieutenant. His destination is the 33rd Aircraft Regiment at Le Bourget
in Paris.
But Antoine is not favored by fortune's privileges.
When everything seemed to be going well -his profession, his girl
friend, good prospects-, a new accident interrupts his bliss. His future
stepfather asks him to resign. Again he is without a job and morally
very affected.
Long embittered months
Shortly after recovering from his
broken bones, he finds a job as supervisor in a tile factory. But
Antoine is not made for counting tiles. He feels that he is a prisoner
of figures... endless columns of figures like prison bars, and a
prisoner of his four-walled office.
"What a pitiful object I must be... But I do not
have a single friend who might show sympathy towards me... Chum, my
situation is despicable. I yawn in an office of two meters long by two
meters wide and look out of the window at the rain falling on the
court-yard. I also make sums. And I sort out files, too, as told... Life
is very sad. I should like to change office. I have been doing the same
thing too long a time. I am the most dispirited guy in the world. "
(Paris 1923)
His life is divided between the office and the
unpretending guest-house where he lives. "Life is sad in this
shabby little hotel in the Ornano boulevard, 70 his... Is not very
funny." (Letter to his mother, Paris 1923.)
One of his sources of joy is the airplane. During his
free time he pilots an airplane. When his finances allow him to... Then
his enthusiasm has no limits: "...On Sunday I went for a spin on an
airplane. I had a good flight. Mum, I adore this occupation. You cannot
imagine the calm-ness and solitude one finds at 4.000 meters of
altitude, alone with the engine." (Letter to his mother, Paris
1923.)
Aside from the airplane, friends are also a good part
of his life during that period of depression. Often he is invited to
parties. Also he goes out in a group to the theatre, for a drink...
Antoine feels that he is understood and supported: "Mum, I have a
new joy in my life. I have the best friends you can imagine. At the
moment they go through an epidemic of liking me. (Letter to his mother,
Paris 1924.)
But since his girlfriend suddenly left him -some
thought that her family did not like him, others thought that he
preferred airplanes to her-, he has more supply of love than ever, and
marriage seems to him the ideal solution: "...I feel like getting
married, not very much though... but I do not know whom to. Moreover l
have provisions of fatherly love. I should like to have lots of little
Antoines..." (Letter to his mother, Paris 1924.)
At the end of 1924 he changes job. He becomes a
representative of Saurer lorrys. He is in charge of three departments,
and spends his time travelling all over the place. But he does not excel
either in his new job: in fifteen months he only manages to sell one
single lorry.
But Paris continues to be his headquarters more than
ever, and, in Paris, the house of a distant relative, Ivonne de
Lestranges, a learned lady who entertains in her saloons well known
writers like Gide, Gallimard, later Antoine's publisher... and there
Antoine happens to meet Jean Prevost, secretary of the magazine "Navire
d'argent", who suggests to the possibility of writing something.
One day, Antoine timidly hands him a few pages that he has written
during his free time, following his advice. The response is neither a
letter nor a few words, but the publishing oft few pages in that
magazine, in the April number of 1926. It is his short story. The Pilot
surprises all and everyone that surround him have known him for a long
time. The Pilot is through and through autobiographical. It tells the
story of a flying monitor who, like Antoine, has depressions whenever he
leaves his airplane. It is an interesting story as the airplane is the
central character of it. Until then the -been unedited. The Pilot is
like a revelation to Saint-Exupéry... flies he shall be able to write.
The success of his first literary composition
coincides with his the airline company Latecoere.
"Saint-Ex", civil pilot
Father Sudour, former teacher at the
Bossuet school, liked Antoine verv much, and so he recommended him to
Beppo de Massimi, manager of the airline company Latdcoe're, born out of
a project, both ambitious -bring into being a commercial company able to
cross the seas-and social -make contacts easier between nations-. It was
the result of the willpower of three men: Massimi, Didier Daurat, two
experienced pilots, and Pierre Latecoere, engineer and aircraft builder
in his own factory. In 1919 took place the first civil flight between
Toulouse and Rabat. Nothing could stop them toward the goal that they
had set themselves... to reach Dakar and afterwards South America,
covering a total distance of 12.400 kilometres.
When Sain-Exupéry first meets Beppo de Massimi, in
1926, civil flights have increased and they reach Dakar already. Flying
conditions are still very tough, so that the pilots are required to be
very much aware of their duty and responsibility. In fact, the flights
have to be operated daily, all the time. Nothing should stop a pilot.
Saint-Exupéry is prepared to do anything in order to
be able to fly, and so he applies for a post as a pilot. Soon after he
is ordered to present himself to Didier Daurat in Toulouse, Chief
Manager of the Civil airlines Toulouse-Dakar. From this interview Daurat
kept the memory of " a man with a mellow voice, unassuming air
about him and an earnest face. As the conversation went on and became
more lively, his replies to my questions revealed a young man gifted
with a true pilot's nature, and also with that of an inventor of fertile
imagination".
Saint-Exupéry had just been successful on the acid
test. Indeed, Daurat was larger than life. Everybody feared him, from
the humblest mechanic to the oldest pilot. Also his task was a difficult
one: to attend to the good running of the airline. He was severe with
himself and with others. He could not accept the slightest mistake or
weakness of the mechanics or the pilots. He was known as an insentive
and unyielding man. As a matter of fact Swnt-Exupéry took his
inspiration from Daurat in order to give shape, later, to the main
character in Night Flight.
The first thing Daurat did with Saint-Exupery was to
send him for a to the repair workshops. It was like an entrance
examination which Daurat imposed on every one who wanted to join his
factory... "in order to take off them the mask of pride that they
wear". Many a one took it as punishment and left after a few days.
Of course, it was not Daurat's job. He only wanted them to be aware of
the requirements of the They all, mechanics and pilots, worked for the
same cause and needed each other.
From the very first moment he was enthusiastic about
the atmosphere comradeship which existed among them. After a few months
he was allowed to undergo a pilot's rest. Everything went all right. A
few days later he took off on his first mail flight: Toulouse-Rabat.
Later he was assigned to the Dakar-Casablanca area.
At last Saint-Exupéry felt himself fulfiilled. From
Dakar, in 1926, he wrote to his mother: "I am all right and I am
happy." (Letter to his mother, Dakar 1926.)
Each take-off was like a new adventure. How would the
airplane react this time? What was the weather going to be like, up
there? Aircrafts were quite different from the ones Saint-Exupéry had
known a few years earlier.
The matter of the fact is that he realized that the
danger was greater than originally thought, when he had to fly from
Dakar to Casablanca 2.765 kilometers across African territory, where
dissident tribes watched the sky, ready to open fire on any plane in
sight. The danger existed also of having an accident in the desert, and
so be caught by the rebels and have his throat cut.
Saint-Exupéry, or "Saint-Ex" for his team
friends, had been civil pilot for a year when Didier Daurat decided to
appoint him chief director of the airplace in Cape Juby. It was on the
19 of October 1927.
Eighteen months in the silence of
the desert
Cape Juby was right in the middle of
the dissident zone, in Rio de Oro, a stopping-place between Casablanca
and Dakar which belonged to the Spaniards. They had built a fortress
where the governor, Colonel de Ia Pefla, lived permanently with a
battalion of soldiers and some officers. From time to time they would go
out on inspection in the Sahara. They did not want the French pilots to
have a landing base in Cape Juby, though they allowed the pilots to land
in order to fill the tanks. if a pilot happened to fall, with the
aircraft, in the dissident zone, he knew that he could not expect any
help from the Spaniards, who had been ordered not to intervene by the
Madrid government.
Under such conditions, Didier Daurat took the
decision to send someone to Cape Juby, someone able to rescue the pilots
fallen in the desert in order to ease the good running of the mail fligh
ts. Several pilots had had their throats cut. Therefore, Daurat was in
need of a man able to use tact and diplomacy on Colonel de Ia Pefla, and
obtain permission from him for the setting up of an airfield. At the
same time, he had to be a brave man, on stand by day and night, ready to
fly out on rescue of any aircraft fallen in the desert. Nobody seemed
more appropriate for this mission than Saint-Exupéry.
And here is Antoine, surrounded by a fence of barbed
wire, the sea on one side and the desert on the other. Later he shall
complain to his mother about this feeling of seclusion: "What a
life... like a monk, in Africa's most forsaken spot, in the middle of
the Spanish Sahara. A fortress by the sea and our rustic dwelling, that
is all in hundreds of kilometers around... The sea, at ebb tide, bathes
us completely and, at night, I lean my elbows on the small barred window
(we are in the dissident zone) and I can discern the sea by my feet, as
near as if I were on a boat. Throughout the night the waves hit the
walls of my barrack. The other wall is set toward the desert...
"And he goes on: "I live in total deprivation. My bed consists
of a board and a thin mattress. A wash basin. Ajar of water. I forget
other details.., the typewriter and some official papers. It is like a
monastery cell. The aircrafts land here every eight days. In between
these days silence..." (Letter to his mother. Cape Juby 1927.)
In order to overcome this deadly boredom, which may
take possession of a man under such conditions, Saint-Exupéry
establishes ties with the Spaniards and soon wins them over with his
games of cards and his telepathy demonstrations. He gains their
confidence and the barrack that he shares with Toto -basically a mecanic
but also a cook during his free time- is full of voices, songs and
parties.
He also makes friends with some Arab children who
maraud by the barracks, and gradually acquires renoun of being a good
man, different from others. He is invited to tea in their tents. In
exchange, Saint-Ex takes them on the aircraft. He treats them as equals,
for the crux of the matter is, as he would later write in his Wind, sand
and stars, "to calm down their pride which is the main reason why
they kill the prisoners, more than for reasons of hatred. They were not
ignorant of the fact that some of them saw the Arabs as a crowd full of
indifference and disdain, and this moved the Arabs to be vindicative".
Now he has a few Arabs on which he can count, and
their help shall be very useful when the moment comes to rescue a pilot
fallen in the desert. This happens quite often. Then Saint-Exupéry has
to inspect the desert until he finds him, When the accident is of little
importance the aircraft can be repaired quickly. It has to be done in a
hurry because the rebellious Arabs keep watch. Sometimes the risks are
high... "Looking for two air-planes lost in the desert I covered
8.000 kilometers in two days. More than three hundred men pursued me,
shooting at me as if I were a rabbit. There have been moments of fear,
four times I landed on dissident's territory, even I had to spend the
night there because of an accident... On such ts my skin, offered with
the greatest generosity, is at stake." (Cape Juby 1928)
But the situation in the desert is not always as
effervescent, and at h times all live in complete harmony at Cape Juby.
At night, Saint-Exupéry writes a new book. A board placed on two
barrels is the desk on works. As he goes on putting together his book,
he reads it aloud to his best friends, during the short spans of time
that they spend with him, before taking off again. When it takes
definite shape, he calls it Southern Mail. Why this title? According to
Pierre Chevrier, Saint-Exupéry was looking for a title when "he
happened to see the designation of the flight to Dakar, Southern
Mail". And so he gave this title to his book in which he expands on
the theme of The Pilot published two years before.
Eighteen months in Cape Juby and his mission was more
than accomplished. When he starts his new assignment, he is awarded the
Cross of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour for the following reasons:
"Exceptional virtues, a pilot of great boldness, gifted with the
best professional qualities, cold blooded to the utmost, and an
exceptional sense of self-denial. As airfield commander at Cape Juby, he
fulfilled his mission with a sense of sacrifice beyond compare, in a
desert area where the hostility of the Arabs is a permanent risk. He has
to his credit several brilliant actions. His zeal, dedication and
self-denial have largely served the cause of the French aviation. He has
never hesitated in risking his life or suffering the rigorous climatic
conditions. He has also contributed to the success of our commercial
airlines, and, in particular, made the development of the Toulouse-Dakar
line easier."
One year in the land "where
the stones fly"
Didier Daurat thought the presence
of Saint-Exupéry more important in South America when he appointed him,
in October 1929, chief manager of the company "Aeroposta-Argentina".
His task was to set up new branches along the Latin American coast, and
so he was put in charge of supervising the last stage of the future
route Natal-Punta Arenas. He had to open up new ways in the Comodoro
Rivadavia and Punta Arenas areas.
But he is not altogether satisfied with his new job.
He writes to his mother: "I have been appointed chief manager for
the development of the Aeroposta Argentina, a branch of the main airline
company, with a salary of 225.000 francs a year. I assume that this
makes you happy; lam a little sad. I liked it the way I had it before. I
think that I feel older. Of course, I shall continue flying, but only in
order to inspect and supervise new routes..." (Buenos Aires, 1930.)
This feeling of weariness is clearly felt in a letter
to his friend Rinette: "I have under my command a network of three
thousand eight hundred kilometers which little by little sucks out of me
the rest of you th and freedom which are still in me." (Letter to
Renee de Saussine, Buenos Aires 1930.)
He lives in Buenos Aires for a month, a city that he
hates. The change is complete, the huge sand plains have been replaced
by blocks of very high buildings where there are masses of people. In
the same letter to Rinette, he adds: "I live in a small flat in a
fifteen storey building, seven above and seven below me, surrounded by
an enormous concrete city! I think, I would feel the same nimbleness in
the middle of a great Pyramid."
He uses to spend most of the time in the airplane, on
the lookout for new airfields, sometimes fighting against the strong
winds from the Patagonia. On his arrival in Buenos Aires he had met with
his old friends again, from the Toulouse-Dakar route, Mermoz and
Guillaumet among others. Saint-Exupéry felt true admiration for them.
He had known Mermoz, the pilot, the pioneer, since he first started
flying, and when the route Casablanca-Dakar was inaugurated, the same
Mermoz was one of the main pioneers. Later on he was sent as chief-pilot
of South American routes and was entrusted with the establishment of a
new commercial route. When the idea of night flights first appeared,
Mermoz was one of the first to turn it into reality. As Saint-Exupéry
explains later in Wind, sand and stars, "Mermoz undertook such
engagements not knowing anything about it, not knowing whether he was
going to come out alive of such struggles or not. Mermoz experimented
for the others."
Saint-Exupery also liked Guillaumet very much. He
remembered how Guillaumet had cheered him up on the wake of his first
flight Toulouse-Rabat. Gudlaumet, the good companion, would get lost
later on the Andes when Saint-Exupéry was chief of the Aeroposta. For
five days they searched the area although they had been warned by
Indians from the Andes that "the Andes mountains, in winter, do not
return the men". All hope seemed lost but after eight days they
were told that Guillaumet was alive. Later he would say that lapidary
sentence: "I can assure you that I had to struggle more than an
animal." Indeed he had had to fight against mountains, snow and
hunger. In the end his face had changed completely. "It was black,
swollen like an overripened fruit that everybody had hit. His hands were
slow and, in order to speak, he had to sit on the edge of the bed and
keep his feet dangling like a dead weight." This is what Saint-Exupéry
wrote in Wind, sand and stars, a book dedicated to Guillaumet. He used
to say of him... "he sheds confidence like a lamp sheds
tight."
Throughout that South American year Saint-Exupéry
worked a lot at writing his second book, Night Flight, which was going
to be a fabulous success. Its leit-motive, night flights, was then very
much in fashion. It is all about the self denial of the pilots, and the
inner conflicts of the chief manager of an airport whose duty is to be
above his private needs. Andre Gide wrote the introduction, and the book
won the Femina Prize in December 1931. This way Saint-Exupéry became
the most appraised man of his time... the well-known pilot started also
as a great writer.
But his friends turned their backs on him, contrary
to the public, who praised his book. His friends reproached him for
having diverged from the truth about the work of the pilots, the
dramatic character of their night flights, in short, they reproached him
for having disfigured reality.
Strictly speaking, Saint-Exupéry would not write
books again, and his Night Flight would become a nightmare for him.
"Because I have written this book", he writes to Guillaumet in
1932, "my friends have sentenced me to a life of misery and
unfriendliness. Mermoz will tell you about the reputation they have
created around me those who do not want to see me any more, those that I
loved so much".
That year, 1931, would be full of events. In April,
Saint-Exupéry marries Consuelo Suncin, widow of the Argentinian
journalist Gomez Carrillo. The same year, the Airline company and its
branch, the Aeroposta Argentina, showed signs of disaster. The banks
stopped (heir credits and Saint-Exupéry was dismissed.
Start from scratch
Without a job, Saint-Exupéry was
obliged to accept a post as a simple pilot. After many years he was
doing the night flight Casablanca-Dakar again.
Meanwhile time was up for the Airline Company, and
also for Didier Daurat, who was going to be substituted. A few months
later, Pierre Cot, new civil airways minister amalgamated all the
private air companies in one, and so was formed "Air France".
That was a hard blow for everyone. Aeroposta was the end of the spirit
of solidarity and closeness.
Aimless again, Saint-Exupéry finds a job as a trial
pilot at the Latecoere company, aircraft and seaplane constructor. His
job lacks interest and Saint-Exupéry becomes listless in such an
atmosphere: "I have just gone back to the seaplane centre - he
writes to a friend of his-, where I did some trials. My ears still drone
and my hands are full of grease. Jam drinking alone on a terrace of a
little café and night is falling. I don't feel like going to supper...
I spend my days by a pond which is neither a sea nor a lake. It is a
mere lifeless surface which I do not like." (Perpignan, 1932.)
On the other hand, Saint-Exupéry is not a brilliant
trial pilot. He makes unforgivable mistakes. The last one almost kills
him. He is compelled to resign.
Back in Paris, he is bored stiff Moreover his
financial situation is precarious.
Since there is no better choice, and in order to
escape inactivity, in 1934 he accepts a job in the advertising
department of Air France. He travels on missions in France and abroad.
After a trip to Saigon, he is sent to Moscow in May 1935 with the task
to write several articles for the newspaper "Paris-Soir"
He writes five articles altogether, and they are a
great success. The opposite happens with his film Anne-Marie. He had
wrUten the script before but the film was only partly successful.
Nevertheless his finances have improved in the last
few months, so much so that he buys himself an airplane, the "Simoun",
then the fastest airplane.
The fascination of risk
Saint-Exupéry had several projects
in view when he bought the "Simoun". One of them was to beat
the speed record between Paris and Saigon held by Japy.
Around this time he has a frightening adventure in the desert The date
is the 29th of December 1935. Saint-Exupéry and his mecanic Prevot
spend five days in the desert dying of thirst and continually suffering
from mirages until they are rescued by the Bedounis. In a letter to his
mother he explains how he felt: "Separation from humanity and
silence made me furious, and I called you, mother. It is terrible to
leave behind a human being that needs you, like Consuelo. You feel,
then, the irresistible desire to go back and protect her, support her.
You feel like rooting out your fingernails against the sand because you
cannot fulfil your duty. You even feel like lifting mountains."
This event was present in his mind when he wrote The Little Prince.
Despite all Saint-Exupéry had not lost courage. Risk
had exerted a secret fascination on him, it pulled at him irremissibly,
as it so happened two years later. Meanwhile he carried on with
journalism.
By that time Spain was the main feature in all
newspapers. A newspaper, the "Intransigeant", decides to send
Saint-Exupéry to Barcelona with the task of writing about the civil
war. Under the heading Spain in blood he described atrocious scenes he
had witnessed. He reported bitterly: "Shooting people here is a
daily exercise. In Spain there are crowds ~' movement, but the
individual, this universe, in vain, cries out for help from the bottom
of the well."
Several years had gone by since his failure in the
Paris-Saigon race, 'so he was ready for the second race, this time
between New York and Tierra del Fuego. But certainly this time luck was
not going to be with him. As he was taking off in Guatemala, where he
had had a technical stop, the aircraft did not respond and the tragedy
occurred. It was the serious accident he had ever had. Saint-Exupéry
had a broken skull his left shoulder was almost shattered. His condition
was alarming he was taken to New York. He was in coma for several days.
It took months for him to recover, and he would never completely recover
from his broken bones.
These long months of sedentary life allowed him to
write a new book, Wind, sand and stars. It is a chain of memories,
experiences and thoughts, all of which take place in a time span
covering ten years of his life as a pilot.
In May 1939 the jury of (he Academy awarded him the
"Gran Prix". Four months later the second world war broke out.
War pilot
Saint-Exupéry is mobilized at once,
promoted to captain and assigned as a reserve officer in the Air Force
at Toulouse. But the doctor's report was adamant... his age, thirty
nine, and his half-paralyzed shoulder rendered him incapable of fu
filling any war mission. Such a verdict was like a death sentence to
Saint-Exupéry. He felt himself relegated to the rank of "intelectuals
in reserve, like jam jars on the shelves of an advertising firm, to be
eaten up after the war."
Therefore he took all sorts of steps in order to have
his assignment changed. He pestered all and everybody who could put in a
word for him, pledging that "I have plenty to say about the events.
I can talk about them as a soldier and not as a tourist. It is the only
chance that I have to speak."
In the end, the reasonings that General Davet
presented to the authorities were decisive... "what matters in the
air force is not the physical heart but heart high and dry." The
3rd of November 1939 he was assigned to the reconnoitring squad 2/33, in
Orconte, in the province of Champagne.
"Orconte -he would write in Flight to Arras-, is
a small village near Saint-Dizier, where my group took quarters in the
winter of 1939, a very bitter winter. I used to live in a barn made of
bricks dried in the sun. At night the temperature was low enough to
freeze the water in my rustic pitcher. Therefore the first thing I used
to do when I got up, was to light the fire, although I had to jump out
of a warm and cozy bed, where I was curled up in true delectation.
Nothing seemed to me more delightful than this simple, monastic bed in
that empty, cold room. After a hard day's work I enjoyed the blessedness
of rest."
The reconnoitering missions at eight or ten thousand
meters or at very low levels, when airplanes represented perfect
targets, were a daily exercise. Saint-Exup6ry would experience, more
than ever, how perfect a target they were in a mission to Arras. Later
he would describe it in Flight to Arras.
Shortly after this, as Saint-Exupéry had been
suspecting so much, on the 22nd of June 1940, France signed the
Armistice, admitting her defeat. Saint-Exupéry felt deeply wounded and
did not stop until he was granted a visa for America.
Nevertheless, he had doubts until the time of his
departure: his duty told him to go to America in order to explain to the
Americans France's dramatic situation, but he also felt remorse at
abandoning his fatherland.
On the ship to New York he was told about the death
of Guillaumet, his best friend. He wrote "Guillaumet is dead.
Tonight I feel that lam left without friends. I don't pity him. I have
never pitied dead people. But I am going to need such a long time to
realize his disappearance, and I am so weary of this horrible job...
This is going to last for months. I shall be needing him so often. Does
one grow old so quickly? I am the only one left of the Casablanca-Dakar
team... Everyone else is dead and there is no one alive with whom I can
share my memories. Here am I old, toothless and alone, pondering about
all this on my own. In South America there is not a single one left
either... there is not a single person left in the world to whom I can
say: Do you remember how perfect it was in the desert? I thought that
only the very old would survive to all their friends, to all of
them."
In exile
In January 1941 he took the last
floor in a building in Central Park South, and there he spent long hours
writing. His publishers asked him to write a book about the war called
Flight to Arras, in which he expressed his opinions and approach to the
war. The book was published simultaneously in France and America in
1942. The Germans quickly forbid its distribution in France. In America
the book was read by a large number of the population. Pierre Lanux
would say about it: "In my opinion, Flight to Arras represents the
most efficient aid rendered to the French cause in American
territory."
During his two years in New York he writes Letter to
a hostage, a moving document used as an introduction to a book written
by the journalist Léon Werth, a close friend of Saint-Exupéry, in the
occupied area of France at the time. The letter is dedicated to the
forty million Frenchmen, hostages of the Germans. It was published in
February 1943. Two months later The Little Prince came out.
The Little Prince
In the whole of Saint-Fxupéry's
literary production one cannot imagine a book like this. At first glance
it seems an unusual book which bears no relation at all to the preceding
books. It takes the shape of a poetical short story in which the animals
speak... For some, it was quite unthinkable that a man of action and a
hero at the same time, could, all of a sudden, write books for children.
For others it was something incomprehensible, something, even lacking of
seriousness, to be rejected if not condemned. So, when The
Little Prince was published, the public gave it a cold reception.
Nevertheless The Little Prince is the book which
shows best who Antoine de Saint-Exupéy was, a book which contains all
his philosophy.
The idea to write this short story for children was
not his. It was a happy coincidence and there is a story to it.
Those who knew Saint-Exupéry describe him as
continually drawing children wherever he happened to be, on his letters,
on serviettes, on restaurant menus, on any piece of paper that he could
lay his hands. One day, his American publisher Curtice Hitchcock asked
him what he was drawing. The answer came simple and surprising:
"Nothing much, it is the chdd in my heart." The publisher took
the opportunity to ask him: "Why don 't you write the story of this
child into a children's book?" And so The Little Prince was born.
As the book was meant for children, it needed
drawings. But soon he was convinced that he would have to do them
himself since professional illustrators were unable to produce the
simplicity and candour that he demanded for his short story.
The Little Prince seems to be an easier and simpler
book than all the others published until then but, in fact, at the same
time, it is the most profound.
On the surface it is a short story for children, but
in reality it is a story of a child written for grown-ups or, if one so
wishes, a going back, a return to childhood, "that huge territory
that is our origin." "All grownups were first children, but
few of them remember it", thus the author writes in his dedicatory
to Leon Werth. This shows that his intention could not be clearer. The
book is aimed at all grown-ups who have already forgotten the child that
they once were, the child that still sleeps within them.
Saint-Exupéry was always faithful to his childhood.
In all his books we come across memories of his childhood, a time of
complete happiness and innocence.
The plot of The Little Prince is very simple. The
little prince lives on a tiny asteroid, and he shares it with a
whimsical flower and three volcanoes. But he has "problems"
with the flower and feels lonely. Until one day he decides to leave the
planet and look for a friend. While he looks for friendship he travels
over several planets inhabited sucessively by a king, a conceited man, a
tippler, a business man, a lamp lighter, a geographer. The approach to
"important matters" of the "grown-ups" leaves him
perplexed, and throws him into confusion. As he travels on, he arrives
at the planet Earth, but he feels lonelier than ever in its hugeness and
emptiness. A snake introduces him to a pessimistic vision of men and how
little one can expect of them. The fox does not contribute to better his
opinions, but teaches him how to make friends: one has to set up ties,
one has to let oneself be "tamed". At the end he makes him a
present of his secret: "Only with the heart can one see fully.
Essential matters are invisible to the eyes." Suddenly the little
prince realizes that he has been "tamed" by a flower, and
decides to go back to his planet using the quick means put at his
disposal by the snake. It is then that he meets the pilot who also was
suffering from loneliness, and as the little prince disappears, the man
finds a friend...
Despite its apparent simplicity, The Little Prince
establishes the question mark which conditions our existence. It is a
total change of values. To the question about essential matters in life,
the answer is surprising and disquieting. All that men consider serious
and important is small matter and without sense in the eyes of the
little prince, whereas all that men consider unimportant is in fact the
reason of existence for the little prince. His ironical judgement about
the earth cannot be more eloquent: "The earth is not just an
ordinary planet! One can count there one hundred and eleven kings (not
forgetting, of course, the Negro kings among them), seven thousand
geographers, nine hundred thousand businessmen, seven million five
hundred thousand tipplers, three hundred and eleven million conceited
men, that is to say, about two thousand million grown-ups."
In order to get out of the emptiness that surrounds
men in solitude, one has to resort to friendship, love, one has to
resort to oneself The idea is not new. It had been displayed in almost
all of his preceding works. Therefore, contrary to what U might seem,
The Little Prince is not an unusual book. It is like the last movement
in the symphony of his work in which all the foregoing themes are
brought together schematically. In the end we realize that the charming
"little prince" is nothing else but the "duplicate"
of Saint-Exupéry, it is the child living inside him that stirs him and
guides him, the child that wakes up in the crucial moments of his life
and prevents him from taking stupid decisions like many a "grown
up" who believe only in numbers, in demonstrations, in the
seriousness of logic, more than in the seriousness of the heart.
In short one might say that The Little Prince is a
quiet meditation about the solitude of man -often a result of his
conceit- and about friendship, the only elixir capable of enriching
human life and of re-establishing lost relationships among men.
"I do not care if I die in
the war...
In 1942 the Americans decide to take
part in the war, and on the 6th of November they disembark in North
Africa.
After publishing The Little Prince, Saint-Exupéry
goes to Algiers in order to join his 2/33 team, at that time under the
command of the Americans. He joins them in May 1943. The Americans
equipped the team 2/33 with a new type of aircraft, the "Lightning
P.38" which reached speeds of up to seven hundred kilometers per
hour.
The age limit to pilot this new type of aircraft was
thirty-five. Saint-Exupéry at forty-three, and with a stiffshoulder3
realizes that he his excluded from piloting that aircraft.
Nevertheless, thanks to influences, he obtains permission to do so after
a strict seven-week training course.
In June he is promoted to commander. On the 21st of
July he flies out on his first mission over the Rhone and Provence. Ten
days later he carries out a second mission but a faulty landing serves
as a pretext to the American command to remind him that his age and
physical condition are a handicap for piloting the "Lightning
P.38". Saint-Exupéry is withdrawn from the 2/33 team.
During eight months he uses all his powers, contacts
people who might use their influence in his favour, and goes through
times of depression and discouragement. Despite all this, his literary
production bears fruit. He goes on writing his book The wisdom of the
sands, started in 1936 and published posthumously.
Finally, Colonel Chassin, who had known Saint-Exupéry
for several years, manages to convince the American general Eaker to let
Saint-Exupéry rejoin the 2/33 team, at that time in Sardinia. Again he
is accepted under the condition not to fly out on more than five war
missions.
The five missions become eight because he always
volunteers for any mission. On the 31 of July 1944, at a quarter to nine
in the morning, he takes off on his number nine mission to photo graph
the Grenoble and Annecy areas. At half past one he has still not come
back when he has only one hour's petrol left. At half past two his
companions suspect the worst.
The aircraft and the body of Saint-Exupéry, like the
little prince's in the desert, were not found on the earth. Maybe he
travelled to asteroid B 612 to join his little prince, silently, leaving
no trace or, at the most, leaving behind a stream of stars.
A letter was found in his room addressed to General
X, written shortly before:
"I do not care if I die in the war or if I get
in a rage because of these flying torpedo's which have nothing to do
with actual flying, and which change the pilot into an accountant by
means of indicators and switches. But if I come back alive from this
ungrateful but necessary "job", there will be only one
question for me: What can one say to mankind? What does one have to say
to mankind?"
JOELLE EYHERAMONNO
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